Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Hansard source

And, as Senator Cash says, the unions know it. Why? Because this is not a good spend. The taxpayer is being diddled and that is the problem. The government are more concerned about getting the money out there at whatever cost. It might not be good value, it might be terrible value, but they just want to throw enough money around and hope that some of it sticks. I suppose if you spend $14.7 billion, a couple of dollars might stick and a couple of jobs might be created, and a couple of sheds might be built. That just might happen if you are lucky. If you spend $14.7 billion, something might just happen.

The problems are simple. This program has insufficient flexibility. It is run on what the school principal cited in the Senate last week described as ‘notorious templates’. In the end it is state bureaucrats who decide the buildings that the state government schools get. Those notorious templates, centrally planned for government schools in the state capitals, are the templates that are provided to government schools—that marvellous whiff of central planning, Senator Faulkner, that I am sure you love so well, that marvellous sense of central planning that apparently was going to solve all our problems. It has not, and it certainly has not solved the problems for state schools throughout this country because these notorious templates are not sufficiently flexible. In the end, if it is a joust between the school community and the state bureaucracy, guess who wins? Who wins that joust? The state bureaucracy. If the school community do not get their way, they do not get anything. That is the problem and that is the great failure in this scheme.

Secondly, overcharging is becoming worse and worse—and I know my opposition colleagues have been arguing about this now for weeks. The problem really is this: state governments are oversighting the running of these programs in each state, and the Commonwealth oversight of those state processes is insufficient. That fundamentally is the problem with this program.

There are two problems: (1) there is no flexibility with the templates and (2) the Commonwealth oversight of state government tendering processes is insufficient. What that means is this: when tenders are called, they are not competitive or there is only one because of the lack of uptake, and the money is being thrown out too quickly. I have heard calls all around Queensland in the last few weeks, ever since estimates, about quotes going up 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 per cent. Why? Because the government will spend whatever it takes of the $14.7 billion to put up a shed to create a job. That is the essential failure of this program.

Finally, it seems there is a bit of bullying by state governments starting. State governments are out to use the money for their own projects so that they do not have to fund schools, as they should be funding them, I might add. State governments and state bureaucrats are bullying principals and saying, ‘If you report this to the Australian or any other newspaper, you won’t get anything.’ Not only do we have a lack of flexibility and the fact that there is overcharging, we also have bullying. The bullying of primary schools is getting worse and worse.

Let me make a prediction. Over the next 12 months, we are going to see many more billions of dollars rolled out in this program. The question we all have to ask is: is this money well spent? That is the question. Is this a good spend? Is this the best way of spending $14.7 billion? Is the taxpayer getting the best value for their dollar, the best bang for their buck? The answer quite simply is no. I know that. Parents know that. Teachers know that. Unions know that. I suspect high-school students will get to know that as well. The great failure of this program has been in the implementation.

I applaud the government in that many of the objectives, in a loose sense, are fine. But throwing $14½ billion at the problem does not solve it. It is the same old Labor Party. We do not have the best spend that we are all entitled to. We do not have the best spend at all for that $14.7 billion. We do not even have a good spend. This is a third-rate spend that has no flexibility to give students and teachers, and even trade unions, what they need—there is not that. There is overcharging—10, 20, 30 and 40 per cent. And, finally, and perhaps most regrettably and increasingly, there is now bullying by state bureaucrats. On that basis this program is a failure.